The survey of nearly 500 client-side and agency marketers studied the extent to which brands in this region are increasing their marketing budgets across a range of digital channels and technologies.

Let’s take a look at some of the key findings from the research.

Ability to measure marketing effectiveness increasingly important

In 2012, 83% of marketers considered increased traffic to a website to be a measure of effectiveness. That figure is only 61% today.

Q: Which metrics do you use to measure marketing effectiveness?

Clearly the ability to better measure effectiveness is increasingly important to marketers, but many still struggle with this area.

The proportion of organisations saying that an inability to measure ROI prevents them from investing more money has increased by 28% since 2013.

Despite the challenges, marketers seem determined to measure ROI more effectively this year.

While only 42% say they have a good understanding of ROI from digital, 84% expect their digital marketing activities to be more measurable in 2015.

Digital skills gap still a concern

In 2014, only 4% of respondents described their digital knowledge as ‘very poor’. That figure has now risen to 10%. And the number who rate it as ‘excellent’ has halved since 2012 (14% to 7%).

Q: How would you describe the level of digital knowledge within your organisation?

Agency respondents view things quite differently, however. The proportion of agencies rating their clients’ digital knowledge as ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ has declined by 56% since 2013, and the proportion rating it ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ has increased by 64%.

Business strategy the most important skill for marketers

Clearly the digital skills gap is a concern, but to get some context it’s important to understand which skills are seen as important.

When asked which skills are important for being a successful marketer in the digital age, respondents highlighted ‘business strategy’ as a key priority. 61% selected it as their first choice and 83% ranked it in their top three.

Agency marketers were particularly in favour of this trait, with 86% of respondents agreeing that ‘business strategy’ is an important skill.

Interestingly, only 7% of responding organisations and 13% of agency respondents cited technology (the ability to harness marketing tools) as the most important skill area.

Q (company respondents): Please rank the following skills areas in importance when it comes to being a succesful marketer in the digital age:

Q (agency respondents): Please rank the following skills areas in importance when it comes to being a succesful marketer in the digital age:

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